[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> OFSS01: First Orbiten Free Software Survey]

[integer@www.god-emil.dk]

 Michael Goldhaber <mgoldh@well.com>


>Byfield makes an  important point.

>> when it comes to science, the impact of this 'confusion' can be less
>> or more clear; it depends on the field of science. you'd be very hard
>> pressed to argue that the theory of the big bang has much effect on
>> social relations, though intellectually there's no question that it
>> derives from turn-of-the-century catholic attempts to come up with a
>> scientistic christian cosmology (abbé lemaitre's 'atom primitif')--
>> and, as such, can be seen as a rearguard attempt to preserve certain
>> cultural traditions. but when you're talking about medicine, the idea
>> that male bodies are 'normal' and female bodies 'deviant' is alive
>> and well--in drug-testing, for example, where fears that an experimental
>> drug's unforeseen consequences might harm women's 'reproductive systems'
>> (i guess men don't have a 'reproductive systems'...). these methods--
>> for testing drugs? from preserving male hegemony?--are then translated
>> into health-care systems' gender biases in formularies, where men are
>> far more likely to have the power to pick and choose medicines because
>> there's a 'body' of literature to support the normalcy of their own
>> particular deviancy from those norms. women, on the other hand, are
>> much more likely to encounter a discursive structure in which their
>> 'deviancy' appears at every level: an insurance system's formulary
>> doesn't cover drug X, here, just use drug Y, it's almost the same,
>> most women don't have a problem with it so just shut up and take it,
>> etc., etc. never mind that, technically (and despite infanticidal
>> policies both formal and informal worldwide), women are the majority,
>> men the minority. never mind embryological morphology. and definitely
>> never mind much simpler ways of thinking about these things, which
>> klaus theweleit summed up very nicely in a footnote: (iirc) 'i'm not
>> about to use literature to make this point. anyone interested in
>> pursuing it should discuss it at length with actual women.'
>>
>> and what does this have to do with this study about software? well,
>> now, that's a very interesting question, isn't it? if you think the
>> answer is 'not much,' you're--in a word--wrong. the fact that soft-
>> ware development is OVERWHELMINGLY a masculine activity is neither
>> in its origins a coincidence nor in its consequences immaterial.
>> while i have my issues with lessig's book _code and other laws of
>> cyberspace_, his notion that technical and juridical fields are
>> collpasing into a real-time regulatory regime in which the distinc-
>> tion between what you will/not do and can/not do become one--thereby
>> effacing the foundation of western ethics--is worth considering. and
>> the fact that this regulatory regime is masculine in its origins
>> (and, presumably, in its consequences) comes as no surprise.
>>
>> cheers,
>> t



     juzt 1 kl!k -- ur kl!k

     http://www.eusocial.com/nato.0+55+3d/242.055.propaganda.html#02
     http://www.gmeb.fr/SoftwareCompetition/Softs99/nebulam81.html     
     http://www.eusocial.com
     http://www.membank.org




>Byfield makes an  important point.


also made [jetzt less phpz] important  -----------------------------

     http://www.m9ndfukc.org/memocide.neu+improved.genocide

--------------------------------------------------








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